CEO Dearest

Why PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi Can't Have It All
The Atlantic

Sheryl Sandberg may have claimed one of the catchiest titles of the decade for a whither-women book — Lean In — but Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi has a pretty good one too, if she ever wants to go there: Her book could be called We’re Screwed, which is a memorable line from a memorable Q&A with the owner of The Atlantic, David Bradley, before an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Just as women in the corporate world are entering management, in many cases their parents are becoming needy elders, their kids are growing into needy adolescents, and with midlife bearing down, their husbands are often reverting into needy teenagers, she says. “So we’re screwed…we cannot have it all.”

The leader of the world’s second-largest food and beverage company tells a classic CEO-mom story of her receptionist filling in when her daughter Tyra calls to ask permission to play a video game. Mom can’t come to the phone, but the receptionist knows to ask certain questions, such as: Have you finished your homework? Once Tyra gives the right answers, the receptionist allows her to play Nintendo for a half-hour. “If you don't develop mechanisms with your secretaries, with the extended office, with everybody around you, it cannot work,” Nooyi says, because the corporation’s demands on the boss are overwhelming. Her husband Raj always said that Nooyi’s priorities were PepsiCo, PepsiCo, PepsiCo, their two kids, Nooyi’s mom, “and then at the bottom of the list is me.” She adds, with a laugh: He should be happy he’s on the list at all. —Andy O’Connell

Worst to First

What Is the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Made?
Pacific Standard

Anyone who has ever tried really hard to make difficult, worthwhile things, whether businesses or books or pancakes, has a “worst” in his or her past. This is a piece about those worsts. Jen Doll talks to nine people about their complicated feelings around these (usually early) attempts at greatness. Most of the interviewees are writers, but the stories resonate beyond the literary world. She discovers that, by and large, worsts are viewed with more affection than revulsion, because they mark the path from apprentice to real practitioner. They’re the scars we’re proud to have earned. The revulsion is there too, though: Author Philipp Meyer describes his first unpublished novel as “600 pages of incoherent nonsense.” —Andy O’Connell

Religion and the Corporation

Could the Hobby Lobby Ruling Unleash a 'Parade of Horribles'?
Knowledge@Wharton

Regardless of where you stand on this week's 5–4 Hobby Lobby ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said that closely-held for-profit companies don’t have to provide the full range of birth-control options to employees, this interview with Wharton legal studies and ethics professor Amy Sepinwall is worth reading (or listening to, on podcast). It covers a lot of ground (including the "horribles" referred to in the headline), but particularly noteworthy are her thoughts around what we expect from companies.

The notion in the dissenting opinion that profit is the central purpose of a for-profit company is "a very cynical take on what corporations are about," Sepinwall says. She points out that many companies engage in philanthropy, help the environment, and take care of their employees. "If we're going to celebrate those aspects of the corporation," she continues, "then I think it's important to recognize that some of the convictions that a corporation might have are religiously motivated and, within limits, to accommodate those convictions." But making sure the leaders of a company do, in fact, harbor those convictions is another, trickier story — particularly if taking a religious exemption offers the company the prospect of saving money.

Well, Sort Of

Flexible Working Extended to All Employees in UK
The Guardian

Britain may be on the brink of a massive sociological and economic experiment — or nothing of the sort — as a law goes into effect this week giving all UK workers the right to request flexible working hours, a privilege once extended only to caregivers. The law allows any worker to request nonstandard working hours to accommodate further education, child care, volunteering in the local community, working part-time, or even just avoiding rush-hour commuting.

“Modern businesses know that flexible working boosts productivity and staff morale, and helps them keep their top talent so that they can grow,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nicholas Clegg. Still, many of Britain’s small businesses already offer flexible hours, and as sweeping as it might sound, the law grants only the right to ask. Employers retain the right to say no, from which there is no appeal. That leaves it to corporate leaders to decide how much of a risk they might incur from sticking with face time and what they would stand to gain or lose from managing the hassles of offbeat schedules. —Andrea Ovans

Take a Look

Visualizing Algorithms
Mike Bostock

This blog post by New York Times graphics editor Mike Bostock was enthusiastically sent around HBR this week by a colleague. In the post, adapted from a recent talk at Eyeo 2014, Bostock explains, in a way that even I could understand, how computer algorithms work. He offers a host of examples along the way. Perhaps most important, he notes that "algorithms are also a reminder that visualization is more than a tool for finding patterns in data. Visualization leverages the human visual system to augment human intellect: We can use it to better understand these important abstract processes, and perhaps other things, too." So kick back with a cold one and spend an hour with this beautifully designed piece. It may help you better think about visualizations in whatever business you may be in.

BONUS BITS

People and Data

The Incorporated Woman (The Economist)
Facebook and Engineering the Public (Medium)
Astro-Matic Baseball (Sports Illustrated)

This blog first appeared on Harvard Business Review on 07/04/2014.

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